Secret Service removes 4 senior officials, is ‘starved for leadership’

The US Secret Service told four top officials they must leave their positions, as the agency tries to recover from a string of embarrassing security failures. The shuffle comes after a critical report said the agency is “starved for leadership.”

The four senior management officials were reportedly told they
could resign, retire, or report for a new assignment with the
Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security, the
Washington Post reported, citing “people familiar with
internal discussions."

A fifth individual has
also decided to resign, the newspaper stated.

Americans in the private sector lose their jobs for gross
incompetence. In the US government they get "reassigned".
http://t.co/o0jPfvBDY3

The news comes on the heels of a critical report in December that
found the agency stretched beyond its limits and is too insular.
In October, Julia Pierson resigned as Secret Service director
after a number of security lapses.

The most threatening of these incidents occurred when a
knife-wielding man managed to scale the White House fence and run
through much of the mansion’s main floor before being subdued.
There were also a series of revelations about the agency’s
bungled response to a 2011 shooting attack at the White House,
and exploits with Colombian prostitutes during an international
summit in 2012.

“Change is necessary to gain a fresh perspective on how we
conduct business,” Joseph P. Clancy, acting director of the
Secret Service, said in a statement to the Washington Post.
“I am certain any of our senior executives will be productive
and valued assets either in other positions at the Secret Service
or the department.”

The departures gut much of the Secret Service’s upper management
in the areas of protection, investigations, technology, and
public affairs. The assistant director in charge of training, who
also headed President Barack Obama’s protective detail, announced
in recent weeks that he would retire.

Clancy, a former leader of Obama’s protective detail who took
over when Pierson resigned as director, told lawmakers in
November that a desire to fix the distrust of management among
agents and officers was “an integral part of why I agreed to
return.”

A critical report by a panel of outside experts in December,
appointed by the DHS, led to interviews with 50 agency employees
and 120 meetings with representatives from federal agencies and
research facilities, metropolitan police, and security forces.

“The panel found an organization starved for leadership that
rewards innovation and excellence and demands accountability.
From agents to officers to supervisors we heard a common desire:
more resources would help, but what we need is leadership,”
the executive summary said.

Clancy said Wednesday that his latest moves were based on the
panel’s independent review and on “my own assessments.”

The current changes leave in place the agency’s second-in-command
manager and one of the longest-serving leaders at the Secret
Service: Deputy Director Alvin T. Smith, reported the Post.

The review report advocated for new leadership from outside the
Secret Service because the new director would have to make
difficult choices to identify organization priorities and hold
management accountable. An outsider, the panel concluded, would
be removed from organization tradition and personal relationships
and could do a top-to-bottom assessment without bias.

The panel also said its most important recommendation would be
that “a new director start with a zero-based budget” –
not based on what the Service asked for in the past – but to ask
Congress for a budget to carry out its mission, and to seek
funding for 85 special agents and 200 uniformed division
officers.